1. Field of the Invention
The present invention describes a technique for communication with mobile data processing devices. More particularly, the present invention describes a technique for communicating with mobile devices, such as chipcards or mobile phones, via mobile software agents.
2. Description of the Related Art
Software agents, or also so-called intelligent agents, are becoming more and more important as the networking of systems becomes more widespread. Software agents are software modules located in a complex environment. The software agent has a sensor input, is able to change its environment, and has a set of goals which it wishes to attain by means of its actions. At present there are a large number of software agents with a wide variety of functions, such as interface agents, information agents, delinerative agents, reactive agents and mobile agents.
Of particular importance for the present invention is the mobile agent. Mobile agents are capable of roving around WANs (for example the World Wide Web). Usually the property of mobility is immediately associated with the term “agent” anyway.
This is not the case, however, because they interact with third-party systems (hosts), collect information and return the information to the user.
In addition to its autonomy, the mobile agent also has the functional property of cooperation capability. The advantage of the mobile software agent is that, by suitable programming, communication costs and times can be saved.
Whereas in the normal client/server sector all communication between the participants is over the network, when mobile software agents are used an agent can be sent over the network to handle the entire communication process locally, which means the computer's user does not have to be permanently online for the entire runtime.
Since mobile software agents rove between networks, software developers are primarily concerned with the problem of security. The issues of authentication (mutual knowledge of identity), authorization (right to use the desired function) and all problems connected with electronic funds transfer (ability/willingness of the agent to make payments; limitation of liability by users; performance guarantees) are key elements.
In the field of mobile software agents there is a state of the art which is concerned with migration, splitting and merging of agents. However, it is usually assumed that the mobile agents begin a task when they arrive at a system and return a result when they have completed that task.
No state of the art is known which describes a mechanism which in a particular way enables communication between the mobile agent and mobile data processing devices.
The approaches applied to date specify software running on terminal equipment which processes data received from backend systems and which can be updated by means of code update mechanisms. But it is not possible for code to migrate to terminals autonomously for specific tasks and interact at the destination with mobile devices.